


Means To An End

by AndreaLyn



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:46:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders has been keeping it quiet from the rest of the family, but Mike stumbles upon the truth without meaning to -- Anders is dying and he needs to figure out a way to stop it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Means To An End

At three in the morning, Mike has already decided that whoever is on the other end of the phone is his new enemy. When he picks up and hears that it’s a nurse at the hospital calling on behalf of Anders Johnson, he isn’t saying that he’s a champion of humanity, but he hangs up. His relieved thought is that it isn’t jail --  _this time_  -- but it’s only guilt that makes him start fumbling for his shoes and his coat, sitting on the edge of his empty bed as he debates whether he’s going to do this.  
  
Ty would go in a heartbeat, but Ty’s life has become significantly more complicated given his fresh marriage to the goddess of death. Dawn would probably go pick Anders up, but she already does more than enough and Mike refuses to add to that load.   
  
Besides, it’s not like he’s got much to do.  
  
“Where’re you going?” Zeb drunkenly mumbles when Mike steps over him. He’s sprawled out on the carpet with his face first in the shag, which is Mike’s fault given the whole ‘drunk checkers’ with tequila, but it’s three in the morning and he doesn’t care.  
  
He grabs his keys from the table. “Hospital. Don’t tell Axl.”  
  
“Axl won’t,” Zeb mumbles, snores interspersed with his words as he falls back into unconsciousness. Mike makes sure to turn him on his side with a poke of his foot before he leaves, driving to the hospital as quickly as he can with the lack of traffic at the current hour.  
  
Mike swears and curses, pissed at Anders even more when he has to pay for the hospital parking and suddenly it’s four in the morning and he’s still slightly drunk and he’s exhausted, but he’s there. “Hi,” he flags down one of the nurses. “Anders Johnson? Which room...?”  
  
They point him down the hall and Mike picks up the pace, thinking of how often they’ve been in this place lately. He’s already preparing some rant in his head about the bar fight that Anders got in this time or whatever STI that’s managed to permeate his brain, but when he does get closer to the room, he hears that he’s not alone.  
  
“Don’t  _touch_  me with your goddess slut hands!”  
  
“Mature, very mature,” Michele retorts. “I’m the one who ought to be pissed at you.”  
  
“You? You suggested I let my brother take the fall for the Hel disaster,” Anders snarls. “Fucking...what are you doing to my hand? You’re the worst I’ve ever had with this, can’t you see the vein?”  
  
“We had a deal.”  
  
“Mike’s life was not included on the line,” Anders says, followed by a howl of abject pain. “Fuck! Fuck you, you piece of...”  
  
Mike steps inside and clears his throat before that tirade can go on any longer. “I’m fairly sure you’re not supposed to swear like that around your doctor,” he says.   
  
Anders exchanges a look with Michele and the both of them look shocked to see him there. “I didn’t call him,” Michele swears. “I’ll find out who did.”  
  
Anders is pale and he looks like shit, but right now, his shock has stopped him from saying anything at all. Rather than crack witty retort, he lies there in a hospital bed in a patient’s gown with an IV running from his hand to a bag hung up on a pole beside him. It definitely doesn’t look like a bar fight or an accident, so that’s one relief.  
  
“Fucking new nurses,” Anders mutters. “Do you know how many times I’ve tried to get them to take you off the emergency contact list?” He shakes his head and slides his hand under the blankets. “Get out of here, it’s nothing. I had too much to drink and I fell in my flat,” he says.   
  
Thing is, Anders has always been an incredible liar. The trouble is that Mike watched Anders evolve from an innocent child who liked to play games and stretch his imagination into a young adult who used lies like weapons and charm where it needed to be applied. Anders is lying right now, but he doesn’t know why.   
  
Instead, he crosses his arms and gets set to wait for the real reason to come out.   
  
“Michele will tell me,” Mike points out.  
  
“She probably will,” Anders grits out. “Knew I should have found another doctor.”  
  
“Anders, what the hell is going on?”  
  
Anders exhales sharply and shakes his head. “I have cancer, okay? Christ, one terminal disease and you think the world is ending. Look, it’s not a big deal.”  
  
“Not a big deal? You’re dying, apparently, you have cancer, and you’ve been keeping it from your family?” Mike scoffs. “Are you even on any chemo or radiation treatments?”  
  
“And what, lose my hair? Look as sick as I feel sometimes? No way,” he says. “I mean, I’d been contemplating it, but I was having too much fun with the whole ‘live life like you’re dying’ thing,” Anders admits with a cheeky smirk. “Fucking whoever I want while the clock runs out? Not bad, when you have the energy for it.”  
  
Mike shakes his head. “You little shit,” he says, as pieces of the puzzle start to get clearer. “All the weed?”  
  
“Medical,” Anders admits. “I prefer cocaine, like our dear Dr. Brooks.”  
  
“And how long do you have?”  
  
“Michele thinks another year,” he says. “Without treatment. I didn’t exactly want to bring her in on it, but it came up in the course of discussions as to why I was so  _eager_  to find Frigg.”  
  
And now, other pieces are making sense, too. “You think that if we find Frigg and we get our god powers back, this stops?”  
  
“You ever heard of a god dropping dead from disease?”   
  
Mike takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s not sure what to do about this, because he’s not supposed to be here, but now that he is, he’s fucking scared. Anders looks small in that gown – small and though he’s trying his best not to seem it, he seems scared, too. He’s pale, frightened, and he’s Mike’s little brother. Something dark twists in his stomach that he can’t name, but he knows he wants to make it go away.  
  
He drifts closer to the bed and sinks down on it, as heavy as a stone, gripping Anders’ hand in his. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
“Until a few months ago, we didn’t even talk,” Anders says roughly. “Not like either of us could cop to being wrong. I was an arse, but you were too,” he accuses. “You had Axl and Val to worry about. I had a business to run. When I got sick, I wanted to call you so bad, Mike, you have no idea,” Anders admits, sagging back against the pillows on his bed. “You always made things better when I was a kid. Mum and Dad were shit at that, plus the whole potential side-benefit of...well,” he says wryly, lifting up his sleeve. “I don’t know if you remember this one. Dad pushed me into the stairs while he was going for Ty. It bruised real bad, but then it faded. It’s sort of coming back,” he says, like he’s fascinated by it.  
  
“Anders,” Mike says, cutting him off before he can keep going. “We’ll find Frigg.”  
  
“You can’t know that.”  
  
“I already promised Axl that I’d help with the hunt,” he says, eyes wild with determination. “We’ll find her.”  
  
Something like guilt flickers across Anders’ face.   
  
“What?”  
  
“There’s something else I haven’t told you,” Anders admits. “Another avenue that might help.”  
  
Mike doesn’t know that he’s going to like this.   
  
“Thing is, I could use your help,” Anders admits. “The way I’m feeling right now, I’m not exactly completely up for the task, but I don’t want to tell Mum that I can’t do it because I think it might be a non-Frigg solution.”  
  
Mike shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I thought I heard you say ‘Mum’ in there.”  
  
“Yeah,” Anders exhales. “Surprise. Agnetha is Mum, her spirit settled in a new vessel. She doesn’t know about this,” he says, gesturing to the hospital bed. “The last thing I want is for her to know about this.” He fiddles with the IV line and manages to sit up. “This fucking thing...” he mutters, and Mike tightens his grip on Anders’ hand, like he won’t be able to get away if he only holds on tightly enough. “She wants me to go to Norway and seek out Yggdrasil. I don’t know why, but tree of life sounds like a pretty good cure for cancer if ever I heard one.”  
  
“Anders, you’re dying, you can’t go to Norway.”  
  
“Ah, see,” Anders says, that mad gleam back in his eye. “Not alone. You can come with me? Mike, please,” he begs. “For a while, I was okay with dying. It’s not like my life was the best of anything. I had a lot of sex and a lot of fun, enjoyed a whole heap of drugs,” he says with a bright grin. “Now that Axl is Odin, our family is back together and I’ve missed that. It reminds me of why I don’t want to give up. So, this is me not giving up,” he says. “But I need your help.”  
  
It may be the only time Anders has ever asked for help for something that is simultaneously so selfish and so heartbreaking that Mike can’t bring himself to deny his request.  
  
Mike shakes his head, exhaling through his teeth.  
  
Anders must find it funny, because he gives a boyish laugh. “You always get this pissed about Mum.”  
  
“Yeah, well, you playing both sides wasn’t very funny.”  
  
“You were Dad’s champion and Ty was Mum’s. Axl was a baby, so I did what I had to in order to stay out of the crossfire. Worked,” he says, even though that’s not the truth. “Most of the time,” he clarifies, since their home situation had been shit for a very long time. “Come on, Mike. Come to Norway?” he says, reaching over. “Look, I’ve done a lot of shit for you that was misguided and in the name of me loving you, because I do,” he insists. “This time, I need you to do this for me.”  
  
“Norway, huh?”  
  
“Yeah,” Anders agrees, shifting when Mike does so that his temple rests on Mike’s shoulder like they’re kids again and they can keep the world out with nothing more than stubborn thought. “I heard you can get really  _excellent_  vodka there.”  
  
“I guess I’m in.”  
  
*  
  
Two weeks into the depths of Norway and Mike is starting to think this is a bad idea. The cold is wreaking havoc on Anders’ lungs and he needs to physically drag his younger brother around most of the cabins. Their strange guide is insane and every time Agnetha calls to check up on them, Mike ends up getting in an argument. The calls from home are even more distressing – a Thing with Ty, Loki being Loki, Olaf running a bar – but Mike’s whole life has faded into caring for Anders. “Okay, shirt off,” Mike says, standing in front of Anders and tangling his fingers in the hem of his shirt, helping to strip it off.   
  
Something’s mutated between them, up here in Norway. Without the proximity of civilization even hinting at near them, it’s like Mike has forgotten all the problems they’ve ever had. Right now, all he sees is his little brother in front of him, the one he loved so much that until they hit puberty, they were inseparable. Regret tugs at Mike and makes him think about all the things he doesn’t want to let slip away from him.  
  
Anders has started to let Mike do more and more, though Mike isn’t sure whether he’s being  _let to_  or if it’s necessary.  
  
“Remember when I was twenty-one?” Anders quietly murmurs, while Mike is unbuttoning his trousers.  
  
“I try not to,” Mike admits honestly. “You slept with Val, you were a horrible influence on Ty, and you kept pushing me.”  
  
“I was an idiot who wanted something you can’t have,” Anders says.  
  
“What, sex? You’ve had plenty of that, Anders.”  
  
“No, you egg.  _You_ ,” he growls. “I wanted you.”  
  
Mike’s fingers still against Anders’ gaunt hipbones. It’s not what he expected to hear, but there’s a part of him – isolated here in Norway with the rest of the world so far away – that wants to take hold of those words and keep them close to his chest. There’s a possessive part of him that doesn’t want to let Anders go.   
  
“What makes you think you deserve me?” Mike replies, but he splays his palms flush against Anders’ torso, drawing him close. “Shut up, don’t even answer, I don’t need to hear the profanity.” Instead, he plays at one of his favourite games and kisses Anders with a crushing desperation that aches as he keeps Anders close to him.  
  
He’d give Anders life if he could, but he can’t. So he’ll kiss him until he can’t breathe and he’ll ease Anders down onto the bed as gently as he can. Tomorrow, when Agnetha calls, no one will pick up and Mike will spend his time kissing the stark angles of Anders’ body, memorizing what he’s going to fix as soon as they find this stupid tree.  
  
In the morning, Anders is bleary-eyed, but he seems settled.   
  
“I doubt you want to hear this,” Anders mumbles against Mike’s neck, pressing lazy kisses against the warm skin there, “but you’re better in bed than Val.”  
  
Mike groans and wraps his arm snug around Anders’ waist to pull him close. “Shut up,” he orders. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us and then we need to get back and figure out how it works.”  
  
*  
  
It takes Mike scaling a fence, Anders’ words of a god, and Stacey helping direct them, but they get Yggdrasil out of the lock-up. “There’s a bigger problem,” Stacey says, when they’re back in the car and Mike asks why Agnetha hasn’t called to check in lately. “Eva’s dead.”  
  
“ _What_?” Anders demands.  
  
“And Agnetha killed her. So, Olaf and the others held a folkmoot, but your mother’s punishment was to become a tree again.” Stacey reaches into the backseat and digs out the latest paper, flipping open to the section on the forest fire. “We think it was Loki, but no one can prove it.  _Wanker_ ,” she growls.  
  
Anders and Mike exchange a fraught look in the front seat. “What are we supposed to do, now?”   
  
Mike tries to work through the haze of panic settled in his mind. “We’ll go see Olaf,” he says, reaching across the gearshift to draw Anders’ hand into his, brushing his thumb slowly over the spot where they’d had to insert an IV of fluids back when they landed at the airport. “Hey, it’s okay,” he says. “We found Yggdrasil and Axl is still looking for Frigg. We’re okay.”  
  
Stacey pokes her head up from the backseat. “What am I missing?”  
  
“The giant neon sign saying this is none of your fucking business?” Anders snaps. “Jesus, get off!”  
  
Stacey rolls her eyes. “Touchy,” she snorts. “Olaf said you two should go see him, though. He says he knows how to ‘rid the disease of the vessel’ or something. I don’t know, he sounded high.”  
  
“So he’s awake,” Mike mutters. “Good.” He exchanges a quick look with Anders to assure him that it’ll be fine. They’ll find some solution to this. He’s not entirely sure he feels as confident as he’s trying to let on, but it’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. He keeps repeating that to himself to convince his mind that nothing horrible will occur while he’s there.  
  
Of course, his family is the one guarantee to throw a wrench in any of his plans.  
  
“Yggdrasil,” Olaf says when he sees the thing.  
  
“Yes. And what do we do with it?” Mike coaxes.  
  
“...I don’t know.”  
  
Michele and Mike exchange a look. The rest of the family still don’t know about Anders, but at the rate he’s deteriorating, it won’t be long before the rest of them see what they see – a sick man. Anders doesn’t even put as much talk into everything as he did before and he’s handed the business over to Dawn – without explanation, which Mike still vehemently disagrees with. She deserves better than that.  
  
Later, when Anders is in the bathroom taking his meds, Mike turns to Michele and he breaks down. “I can’t lose him,” he whispers. “You have to help me. I don’t know how, but you have to.”  
  
“The stick, it doesn’t do anything?”  
  
“I don’t know how to use it!” Mike insists, shoulders rising with tension before he gestures to the bathroom. “He’s my kid brother. I love him, I can’t lose him to  _this_  of all things. Disease? Anders is supposed to go out with a bang, not this. Please, Michele,” he begs, desperation in every ounce of his tone. “Please, you have to help me.”  
  
“I don’t know how you expect me to help.”  
  
“You’re a healer,” Mike says, lifting up Yggdrasil and handing it to her. “Try?”  
  
It’s all they can do.  
  
*  
  
They sit there, side by side, but this time the doctor isn’t telling Mike about how they can try for another baby, but there’s a real reminiscent vibe. The office has the same franchise-style furniture as if every office in the country looks precisely like this. Michele sits on the opposite side of the desk with Anders’ folder splayed out before them.  
  
“We’re going to have to destroy this,” she says, of the folder’s contents. “Unless you feel like marketing the tree of life as a cure for cancer.”  
  
Anders opens his mouth, but Mike gets there first. “No,” he cuts his brother off. “You’re saying it’s gone. It’s absolutely gone?”  
  
“I don’t know what that tree did, but Anders is free of the cancer,” Michele says, pressing her lips together as she looks at Anders, shaking her head. “I suppose we’re stuck with you a while longer, aren’t we?”  
  
Mike’s too shocked to do anything but sag forward, relieved, and it’s not until he feels Anders’ hand on his back that he bothers to look up. “Hey,” Anders whispers, a cheeky grin on his face. “This is the kind of news I usually like to celebrate with vodka and sex.”  
  
He can see, all too well, what happens next. Anders will go back to his old ways and this will have been a momentary slip-up; a part of his life that he doesn’t revisit until he’s so drunk that it practically unearths itself, but Mike’s almost okay with that. Anders is alive; Anders is going to be okay.  
  
“So,” Anders drawls, still talking. “You busy?”  
  
“I thought maybe you’d want to go back to your girls?”  
  
Anders wrinkles his nose. “Why? Fuck them. I mean, politely so because they were always great fucks, but now that I’ve got you...” He moves, straddling Mike in the doctor’s office style chair. “I’m not letting you go. Not ever.”  
  
And this is their start to something new, which Mike will take however it comes.


End file.
